I am writing to you with an urgent demand that you intervene with the authorities in the Islamic Republic of Iran, who are preparing to execute by stoning Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani. Stoning is a barbaric form of torture and execution that should be outlawed worldwide. It is your responsibility to step in and demand a halt to these proceedings.

Svanar

Doset daram joonam

Francesca Woodman

Source to all photos: Google picture search.

"Woodman left behind an archive of more than ten thousand negatives, which are maintained by her parents. Fewer than 150 of her images have been published or exhibited in public. She has become something of a cult figure, influential to some students of photography in schools that place a heavy emphasis on theories of art.

There are sound reasons for that. Woodman's work does address issues of body image and objectification, of women seizing control of the way they're represented in art, of the exploration of the visible landscapes of the body and the invisible landscape of the mind. But I wonder if Francesca Woodman the person…the young woman who is both the subject and the object of the work…gets lost in all that.

The sad fact is, all we know of Francesca Woodman is the work she produced between the ages of 13 and 23. Who among us would want to be judged solely on what we produced in our formative years? Who knows what sort of work she'd have done had she not leapt out of that window? Perhaps she'd have moved outside the confined spaces present in most of her work. Perhaps she'd have become somewhat less grim and dour. Perhaps she'd have reclaimed her own face.

That's nothing but wishful thinking, of course. Francesca Woodman did jump out that window, and her work is now forever frozen in time."